Five things about Kentucky football’s Saturday opponent, the Ole Miss Rebels:
1. New coach Lane Kiffin has a new playcaller
The son of legendary defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin, Lane Kiffin made his chops scheming potent offenses through a wandering coaching career that has included stops with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, college football’s Tennessee Volunteers, Southern Cal Trojans, Alabama Crimson Tide (offensive coordinator) and Florida Atlantic Owls. In his first year as the Ole Miss head coach, Kiffin is letting someone else call the plays.
That would be Jeff Lebby, offensive coordinator last year at UCF, which finished second nationally in total offense at 540.5 yards per game. Lebby is an Oklahoma graduate who spent a year as a grad assistant under Mark Stoops’ brother Bob at OU. He was then running backs coach at Baylor, where he married head coach Art Briles’ daughter, Staley. Lebby’s father, Mike, and Briles were high school coaches together in Texas.
When Briles was fired at Baylor, Lebby spent a year at NAIA school Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla., before joining the staff at UCF, where he was OC for former Oklahoma quarterback Josh Heupel. The Knights scored 43.4 points per game last season. This year, the Rebels gained 613 yards in a 51-35 loss to visiting Florida last week. And they showed plenty of the Kiffin influence, with a wide receiver throwing a pass, plus utilizing a quarterback as a running back and slot receiver. That leads us to No. 2.
2. The Rebels have a Drew Brees/Taysom Hill thing going on
Coming into the season, Kiffin had to settle on a starting quarterback between holdovers Matt Corral and John Rhys Plumlee. The better passer, Corral completed 105 of 178 passes for 1,362 yards and six touchdowns with three interceptions last season for an Ole Miss team that finished 4-8. The better runner, Plumlee rushed for 1,023 yards and 12 touchdowns on 154 carries last season, averaging 6.6 yards per carry. He also completed 79 of 150 passes for 910 yards for four touchdowns with three interceptions.
Kiffin went with the drop-back passer against Florida, starting Corral. But if the sophomore from Ventura, Calif., was Kiffin’s Drew Brees, Plumlee was his Taysom Hill. Borrowing a page from Sean Payton’s playbook with the New Orleans Saints, Kiffin/Lebby used Plumlee as a quarterback, a wildcat back and a receiver. At least at first. Plumlee caught a pass for 6 yards. He carried four times for 4 yards. And he completed a 3-yard pass. Kentucky might see more of the same on Saturday.
As for Corral, he completed 22 of 31 passes for 395 yards and three touchdowns with one interception against Florida. And that leads us to No. 3.
Mississippi quarterback Matt Corral (2) looked to pass during the second half against Florida on Sept. 26. Thomas Graning AP
3. Ole Miss has a newsworthy receiver in Elijah Moore
You might remember the 5-foot-9, 185-pound Moore from last year’s Egg Bowl. He hopes you don’t. Against archrival Mississippi State, Moore caught a touchdown pass with four seconds left to pull the Rebels to within 21-20 of MSU. Problem was Moore celebrated by imitating a Bulldog urinating, a jab at the opposing Bulldogs. The ensuing unsportsmanlike conduct penalty pushed the extra point back 15 yards for Luke Logan, whose kick sailed wide right. MSU won 21-20.
“Elijah is a fine young man who lost control of his emotions in the moment,” said Ole Miss in a statement the next day. Moore also apologized.
Highest-graded WRs in College Football Wk 4
1. Austin Watkins, UAB - 92.0 2. Elijah Moore, Ole Miss - 90.5 3. Lavel Davis Jr, Virginia - 87.2 4. Seth Williams, Auburn - 84.1 pic.twitter.com/m19bZ0d7oM
Indeed, Moore is a fine receiver. He caught 67 passes for 850 yards and six touchdowns last season. He caught 11 balls for 102 yards in a 28-20 loss to California, and nine passes for 143 yards in the Rebels’ 58-37 loss to eventual national champion LSU. As a freshman, he caught 36 passes for 398 yards and three touchdowns. That included an 11-catch game against South Carolina that totaled 129 yards.
He topped all of that last Saturday, catching 10 passes for a career-high 227 yards. Moore had grabs of 28, 31, 51 and 57 yards. In Kiffin and Lebby, he has offensive minds who know how to get him the football. After struggling to cover Auburn’s athletic Seth Williams last week, UK’s secondary will have its hands full with Moore this week.
4. Another Youngstown guy leads the Ole Miss defense
Youngstown’s own D.J. Durkin is in his first year as the Ole Miss defensive coordinator. Durkin is just 42 years old, compared to the 53-year-old Stoops, who as we all know is a Youngstown, Ohio, native. When Durkin was head coach at Maryland he hired a pair of former Stoops assistants in defensive coordinator Andy Buh and defensive line coach Jimmy Brumbaugh. (Buh is now at Arizona; Brumbaugh is at Tennessee.)
Durkin played defensive end at Bowling Green before embarking on a coaching career that saw him become Will Muschamp’s defensive coordinator at Florida in 2013. He joined Jim Harbaugh at Michigan in 2015 before becoming head coach at Maryland in 2016. Durkin was just 10-15 in two seasons as the Terps coach before offensive lineman Jordan McNair died during a preseason workout before the 2018 season. An investigation of the program determined that Maryland football was operating under a toxic atmosphere, allegedly led by strength coach Rick Court. Though cleared of wrongdoing, Durkin was let go.
He spent 2018 as a consultant to Nick Saban at Alabama and 2019 as an intern on Dan Quinn’s staff with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons before being hired by Kiffin. Durkin has plenty of work to do. Under defensive coordinator Mike MacIntyre — a finalist for the Kentucky job before Stoops was hired in 2013 — Ole Miss was 85th in total defense last season, allowing 416.8 yards per game. The Rebels were 120th in pass defense, giving up 278.3 yards per game.
Florida gained 642 yards on the Rebels last Saturday with quarterback Kyle Trask throwing for six touchdowns. The Gators had nine plays of 20 or more yards, including a 50-yard run by Kadarius Toney and a 71-yard touchdown pass from Trask to Kyle Pitts. The Florida tight end caught eight passes for 170 yards.
5. Ole Miss leads the series with UK 28-14-1
The two schools have played just five times since 2005 with Ole Miss holding a 3-2 advantage. UK beat Ed Orgeron 31-14 in 2006 in Lexington and Houston Nutt 30-13 in Lexington in 2011. The Rebels beat Rich Brooks 13-7 in Oxford in 2005, beat Joker Phillips 42-35 in Oxford in 2010 and beat Stoops 37-34 in Lexington in 2017.
For Kentucky, that 2017 loss was tough to take. The Cats had taken a 34-30 lead on a 1-yard Benny Snell run with just 2:14 left in the game. But Ole Miss quarterback Jordan Ta’amu marched the visitors right back down the field, going 71 yards in 14 plays. With five seconds left, wide receiver D.K. Metcalf, currently of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, leaped over UK cornerback Lonnie Johnson, currently of the NFL’s Houston Texans, in the back corner of the end zone to make the 7-yard touchdown catch that proved to be the game-winner.
“Obviously, a very devastating loss,” Stoops said at the time. “You know, the bottom line is we didn’t make enough plays in critical moments. They did.”
Kentucky does have a couple of highlights in the series. In 1964, Charlie Bradshaw’s Wildcats upset then No. 1 Ole Miss 27-21 in Jackson. In 1969, in John Ray’s second game as the UK head coach, the Cats upset Archie Manning and No. 8 Ole Miss 10-9 at Stoll Field.
John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky, he covered UK football from 1987 until being named sports columnist in 2000. He has covered 20 Final Fours and 42 consecutive Kentucky Derbys.Support my work with a digital subscription
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